There was no way to know then that Cooks would become arguably the best receiver in Oregon State history. At Andrea Cooks’ home in Stockton today, a shrine of sorts has been constructed on one wall to honor her youngest child, complete with pictures, posters and a jersey. It’s a testament to all Brandin has accomplished, and a reminder that he still craves more.

“The day after daddy died,” Brandin says, “it felt like everything went downhill.”

Each of his older brothers — Fred, Worth Jr. and Andre; now 32, 27 and 23, respectively — struggled with the loss of their father in a different way. Fred, the oldest who was already out of the house, plugged away at work, helping when he could and learning how to provide for himself. Worth Jr. fathered his first child at 15 and barely finished high school. Andre, Brandin’s sidekick growing up, has been in and out of prison the past few years. It’s only Brandin, the baby of the family, who was not permanently scarred by his father’s death.

A tight-knit group brought closer by tragedy, this is a family that roots for the one kid who got it right.

“I used to tell him, ‘Don’t be like me, Don’t be like us,’” says Worth. “‘You can be the one that’s different.’”

And...

Days after agreeing to surgery for heart problems — “He said he wanted to watch his babies grow up,” Andrea says softly — Worth Sr. dropped dead of a heart attack at their home in Stockton. He died in Andrea’s arms on the living room floor, just 48 years old.

In the months and years that followed, Andrea ached for her husband. She missed Saturday mornings when the boys would crawl into bed with their parents, clamoring for attention and affection. But grief doesn’t pay the bills, so Andrea, who already worked at a shipping and receiving warehouse, took a second job at an after-school program, hoping to keep her boys on a straight path.

Brandin isn’t sure if it’s accurate to say the Cooks grew up poor — he certainly doesn’t like the word — but knows they were definitely below the poverty line, something he failed to understand for many years.

“I would get jealous of other kids with dads: ‘What would it be like if I had a dad? How good could I be? Would our family be better?’ I used to get mad that we couldn’t do stuff — go shopping, go out to restaurants, go on vacations. I needed rides to school, but I was embarrassed for people to see how small our house was,” Brandin says. “One day, Fred sat me down and said the reasons we ate beans and bread so much, it’s because it’s all we could pay for. And that’s when it hit me.”

Since that talking-to, Brandin has heaped praise on his mom for rising above their struggle to raise four boys.

Now, Brandin Cooks is helping repay his mother for all the years of sacrifice.